Tame Impala – Lonerism LP Review

If, in 2010, you had the extraordinary fortune to stumble across Tame Impala’s first album, Innerspeaker, you’d be as excited as I was when I heard about their most recent LP, Lonerism. If you didn’t listen to their first album, go do that and come back to me, it’s worth it. No, really.

I’m going to make a bold statement, now. This album is my favourite of 2012. Apart from maybe Jack White’s Blunderbuss, nothing comes vaguely close to how beautifully crafted and sonically sculpted this album is. It has the most elegant timbres, the best arrangement, a single that you just want to hear over and over again, and some really fruity lyrics.

Every instrument gets a say in every song, the synths that permeate nearly every song to the beefy guitar riffage in Elephant, you get the feeling Kevin Parker is really trying to showcase his talent on each instrument. Which frankly, he doesn’t need to try to do. The fact that in the studio, he plays virtually everything, and mixes and produces every song is astonishing in itself, if you ask me.

Still, he manages to frankly gangbang a wave of synths and guitars together and seriously pulls it off. Again, the arrangement in this album is incredible because of this. The only track that brings together one of every instrument is Apocalypse Dreams, one of the best songs ever written. The bass riffs are exquisite, the synth parts in the middle and end are amazingly written, the lyrics make a massive statement, and it’s so well mixed that if you were to accidentally turn a knob on the desk in mid-production the world would end.

There isn’t a bad song on this album, and all of them are such a contrast to each other, but have that massively bright and trippy feel to all of them. It was certianly my soundtrack to 2012 and currently 2013 too, and I urge you to go out and buy it, and their first album, which isn’t quite as mind-blowing a masterpiece, but a brilliant album nonetheless.